Interview with Andrew LeBaron

Andrew Shares How He’s Built His Brand Through Social Media. He’s grossed over $150,000 in a month with these exact strategeis. He’s also leveraged his business to be powered by Virtual Assistants.

Video Replay of Interview with Andrew LeBaron

Podcast Replay of Interview with Andrew LeBaron

Show Notes:

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Transcription:

Steve: Hey everybody. Thank you for joining us for today’s episode of Real Estate Disruptors. Today we’ve got Andrew LeBaron with Trusted Cash Offers. And he’s here to share how he’s not only generating six figures a month wholesale, but he also has four more businesses that are purely run by virtual assistants overseas.

Steve: If this is your first time tuning in, I’m Steve Trang, broker owner of Stunning Homes Realty, cofounder of the OfferFast app, the one thing you need to wholesale in this business. And I help people become real estate entrepreneurs. If you’re excited for today’s show, please give me some waves, give me some hearts.

Steve: Before we get started, I did start this show because I wanted to give back to our community. I started young and struggled quite a bit. I know you struggled quite a bit. What we want to do is shortcut that struggle for as many young real estate leaders as possible. So I don’t charge a dime for this show. I don’t make any money doing this. So here’s all I ask, this is what it costs you: if you get any value out of this show, please tell a friend, share this episode, tag a friend below, or tell me your best takeaway from the show later on, that way we can all grow together.

Steve: Don’t forget, this is a live show. We’re not only live today on Facebook, we’re also live on YouTube, so we’re going big time today.

Andrew: Yeah. Heck yeah.

Steve: So if you’ve got any questions, please post them below and Andrew will be happy to answer them for you. You ready?

Andrew: I’m ready.

Steve: All right. So what got you into real estate?

Andrew: Cool. All right. So I served a mission for my church for two years, and came home, decided I wanted to be a physician’s assistant. So went to the hospital, I shadowed this guy-

Steve: At what age?

Andrew: I was 21. I was 21. I didn’t know what I wanted to do before that. I wanted to be … I think I wanted to be something doctor, something medical. It was cool. I just wanted money, really. I just wanted money.

Steve: Of course. That’s all of us, yeah.

Andrew: “Let’s make money.” So I show up to the hospital and I look around and it’s just white walls, moaning people, sadness. I said, “I can’t do this. It’s not for me. These people are great, they need help. That’s why you’re here. That’s not me.” So I jumped away from that and I said, “Let’s join a call center.” So I jumped into a call center at Chase Bank, dropping names, Chase Bank. My mom helped me get the job.

Steve: Nice.

Andrew: I was like, “Mom, please help.” So she helped me get the job and I rose up the ladder pretty quickly. I was bilingual. I was a manager. Just customer service. Not a big deal. I was making, like, $40,000-something a year, life was great.

Steve: Not bad for 21.

Andrew: Not bad. Not bad, yeah. Yeah, people with degrees were probably making the same as me. It was fine. I just hustled. And I got a phone call one day, and this phone call changed my life. This guy says, “Hey Andrew. I need the payoff quote for all 10 of my properties.” Now, if you don’t know mortgages, you have a mortgage, if you eventually want to sell your house, you’ve got to get a payoff quote. So I got 10 payoff quotes ordered.

Andrew: I said, “Hold on. You need 10? And these are each in different names. You, sir, are not the owner of these mortgages.” He says, “No, I know. I own the homes though.” I said, “What? You own the homes but you’re not on the mortgage? I don’t understand.” So I said, “Okay.” He said, “Yeah, I’m about to make something like $4 million, $3, $4 million bucks off of these properties.” Southern California properties, super ghetto. And he acquired these properties for super cheap. So I got on the phone with him afterwards and I spoke to him and I said, “Hey, how did you do that?” He’s like, “I took over these properties creatively, and if you want to learn more, I’m not going to teach you.”

Andrew: So I was like, “Dude! I’m in the wrong business. I want to do that. I like that. I love sales.” And that’s when I discovered sales. I love sales. In the call center, I learned how to work with, funny enough, Filipinos. I was manager over both bilingual Spanish, so some Filipinos in the Manila call center, and I just learned how operations worked, I learned how delegation worked, I learned how outsourcing worked. And that’s how I learned real estate.

Steve: Interesting. So you got in. Did you jump straight into it with True Freedom Achievers? Or did you have another … What was-

Andrew: So what I did after that, I hung around on BiggerPockets.com. I just found that was a great place to ask questions. I was asking all the newbie questions like, “What’s a loan?” Or, “How do I get a loan? What does ARV mean?” All the dumb questions. I find a house on Hubzu and I decide to ask a friend of mine for some money to buy this house. This friend’s like, “You’re crazy. No.” I said, “Please?” And he said, “Yes.”

Andrew: So we bought this home on Hubzu for $110,000. It was on Becker Lane. And if you want the exact address, PM me, I’ll show you. It was on Becker Lane. We bought it for $110,000, we put like $10,000 into it, and we sold it for $145,000. It was like a dream come true. We barely made any money. I mean, it wasn’t a lot, but I’m like, “We made our money back and then some. So let’s keep it going.”

Steve: Right. Well, not losing money on your first one is, like a win. Right?

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, it was a huge win. So my first deal wasn’t even a wholesale deal. It was a fix-and-float, which was scary, and I hated it. From there, I started generating leads, lots of leads. I learned how to do direct mail. That was when direct mail was hot. It was about three and a half, four years ago, about four years ago. From there, I met a couple of people from a company named True Freedom Achievers. They’re fantastic. Good guys. Good group of guys. They still buy from me. And I became an acquisition agent from them, and just hustled until I learned all the ropes. They knew I needed to be a chief and build my own thing.

Steve: So what were some of your early struggles buying that one with Hubzu or working with TFA? What were some of the early struggles that you faced?

Andrew: Early struggles was, in my mind, I hated my job, because I realized the potential of making a lot more in real estate. So imagine that gnawing on your spine every morning, “You could make so much more, but you’re shackled to this 9:00 to 5:00.” That was a big struggle. From there, I think just generating leads.

Andrew: If we want to go backwards to buying that house, I thought it was made. I ran into so many issues buying the home. After we bought the home, I ran into a septic issue. There was a septic tank on Big Mountain block of Sunny Slope, which is such a pain, because you can’t rebuild it. It was so close to the sewer line that Phoenix code makes you connect it to the sewer line. That was a new law that came out. I need to brush up on my Phoenix laws, but that’s what they stated. So I had a septic inspector come out and wink at it, and he’s like, “Yeah, approved.” So it worked. It worked. It was barely working, but it worked. The next guy that bought it from me knew that it needed to be fixed, but we got it done. Lots of snags. So it made me really hate rehabs, like, super hate rehabs.

Steve: So knowing what you know today, what would you do differently?

Andrew: You know what? I think I needed to have that experience. I needed to have that experience, so that I knew right off the bat that rehabs wasn’t for me. We’ll do some rehabs throughout the year, but not a ton. We’d rather just give you a layup so someone else can hold the hammer to it. What I would do differently is quit sooner, quit my job sooner, jump out faster.

Steve: Right. I was doing some research on you before we met.

Andrew: All right.

Steve: And I saw that you wrote a kid book.

Andrew: I did. I did.

Steve: Freddy Flips Houses?

Andrew: Yeah, Freddy Flips Houses.

Steve: What’s that about?

Andrew: It’s an Amazon book. You can go check it out. Honestly, it was just a project for me to really teach people how to do real estate. It was a project so I could teach my family. My family was like, “What do you do?” And I’m in the real estate about six months. I’m like, “I do real estate.” “What does that mean?” “I flip houses. Let me show you how I do it.” So I wanted to reflect the project on Becker lane. I wanted to say, “Hey, here’s a book. Read what I do. Freddy did it. You could do it. I did it.” And that’s what I did. I actually hired a VA to write the book and make all the illustrations.

Steve: Oh really? Very cool. Have you done anything with that book since?

Steve: Okay. And then I also happened to watch your mission call video.

Andrew: All right. Chubby Chubs.

Steve: There were two takeaways from there. You were chubby.

Andrew: I was big.

Steve: How old were you?

Andrew: At that time I was 18, almost 19. Yeah. I was 18 and I was 200-and-almost-70, 265.

Steve: Man, that’s heavy.

Andrew: Yeah, I was big.

Steve: Okay. So that was the first thing I learned about you from that video. And the second thing is, you were built for Facebook Live, because watching you do that YouTube video and watching your Facebook Lives today, it’s not that different.

Andrew: Yeah, just bright, be up in front of the camera. That’s what it is. Be the true you.

Steve: The other thing, too, is, you know, we talked about with Carlos and Sal and some of the other people-

Andrew: Love those guys.

Steve: Awesome people.

Andrew: Awesome guys.

Steve: And we feel like we have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder, which turns into an advantage, in being that we’re immigrants. We weren’t born here. I know we’ve known each other for a little bit of time, and you’ve shared with me that you were adopted. So do you think that’s played any kind of factor at all in your-

Andrew: Absolutely. I was adopted at nine days old in Phoenix. I was raised by two amazing people, love them to death, some of my best friends. My mom and dad raised me really well. I learned I was adopted at age eight. And when you learn you’re adopted, the strangest thing happens to you. There’s like this aura that comes around your head, and you just say, “Okay, everybody around me is different. My family’s not the same as me. My mom’s not the same as me.”

Steve: So there was a shift?

Andrew: There was a shift. There was a shift. But it was a slow, gradual shift, because when you’re eight years old, you don’t get it. But you grow up with that mindset saying, “I’m different.” I look at my mom, I don’t have that nose, I don’t have those eyes. So I’m different. Now I know I’m different. I’m meant to be different. So when you grow, when you’re raised meant to be different, it’s so easy to do stupid things and to be silly or to be yourself, because you’re already different. But you can’t change that. I can’t unadopt myself. Many people have asked me that question, and that’s what I respond. I grew loving to be different.

Steve: Embraced it?

Andrew: Embraced it.

Steve: So what are some stupid things that you did?

Andrew: We won’t go through all the stupid things I did. You could ask some of my senior friends at Highland High School what I did. No, just kidding. We won’t go there. I just didn’t care what people thought of me. For example, I’m a vegan. I’ve had a lot of flack from that. I don’t care. I’m a Mormon. Obviously that’s a natural thing, people give you flack for that. Anytime you have a belief or something that’s not … it’s a minority, people are going to give you flack. I just don’t care. It makes me happy.

Steve: Well, just understand, if anything ever goes down, I’m going to your house for safe-keeping.

Andrew: Come on over.

Steve: Okay. So what are some things that you’re passionate about? Or is there any one particular thing you’re most passionate about?

Andrew: Number one, I am passionate about helping other people. I know it’s so cliché, but I think it shines through. I really hope it does. When I see other people win, that gets me going. Whether I make money or not, it just gets me riled up. For two years of my life, I served a mission. That wasn’t for pay. That was free. I knocked on doors for free.

Steve: Great practice, by the way.

Andrew: It was great practice. My door approach is solid. But I love to see lives change. That’s my number one and ultimate passion.

Steve: Yeah. You know what’s funny? Also, my buddy, my best friend, I talk to him once a month on accountability, and we talk about figures and how my business is looking. And about once a quarter he’s like, “You’re an idiot for owning a brokerage.” He’s like, “Fold that sucker down and just focus on what makes you the most money, which is wholesaling and flipping. Right?” I always tell him, “But you’re missing the part where it’s really fulfilling. I’m changing lives. People’s lives are getting better because of what I do.”

Andrew: It’s also another marketing avenue. It’s another stream of income, too.

Steve: No, not really.

Andrew: Well, you’ve got to write something off every year.

Steve: Well, yes, there’s plenty of write-offs. This is true. Okay. So what does your organization look like today?

Andrew: Today, we have around 20, I would say, yeah, 20 people that work with us. It’s Isaac Moore and myself as the founders of these multiple companies. We have a couple companies. Each company has its own purpose that builds [crosstalk 00:12:23]-

Steve: So he’s a partner in each one of these companies?

Andrew: He’s a partner in each one of these companies, yeah.

Steve: Cool. Very cool.

Andrew: I would even say Isaac brings more deals to the table than I do. He’s very good at closing, he’s very good at sourcing and bringing in deals.

Steve: So he’s the one I should be hanging out with?

Andrew: Yeah, he’s the one. Praise to Isaac. I’m just here. I’m the spokesguy. I’m the mascot. I should be in a dog outfit. So it’s Isaac and myself. We have an executive team, which consists of three virtual assistants, one being an executive over everyone else, and that’s Pamela Sanchez. She’s fantastic. We’ve actually made her an owner of another company.

Steve: Very cool.

Andrew: She’s growing that company. It’s called VA Dream Jobs, where we bring Filipinos to a career. They get to have a career. They get … Sorry. How do I say this? They get to select a career in real estate, and work with us and work with our clients. That is our team. We have some acquisition guys, Darren Votel, and Darien Owens. We have a sundry of other acquisition people that are realtors, not officially with us on our team, but they bring us many deals. And the rest are virtual assistants.

Steve: Okay. So how many acquisition guys do you guys have right now?

Andrew: We have two officially. Non-officially, we have five or six.

Steve: So you’ve got Darien and Darren?

Andrew: Darien and Darren.

Steve: Then, what’s the unofficial? Who are those people?

Andrew: These are just other realtors, just people that bring us deals constantly.

Steve: Affiliates?

Andrew: Yeah, I would say more affiliates. I probably wouldn’t drop their name, but they-

Steve: That’s fine.

Andrew: Yeah. I don’t want you to steal my acquisition guys.

Steve: I can stalk you. I can go through your past. Okay. What about dispositions? What about unloading the properties?

Andrew: They’re all in the Philippines. So Jariel, Jariel Castel, and you’ll see him around on some of my Facebook pages. He will post properties in Facebook, in over 100 pages on Facebook, over 10 Craigslist posts. Yeah, we’re psycho when it comes to dispositions. Let’s see, Facebook, Craigslist, the email blast, which is over 33,000 buyers. We’re going to be expanding in other states here soon, so we’re building email lists in those other markets as well. Instagram. We need to up our game in Instagram. We need to be better. Yeah, most social media, and LinkedIn.

Steve: LinkedIn? LinkedIn even? Okay. So how many cold-callers do you have?

Andrew: We have right now just two. Two. We had a partnership with somebody. I’ve told you about this. There was a little bit of a divide. I guess we’ll just be real. But there was a little bit of a divide between us and this company, so we had to rebuild from the ground up. Kind of sad times, but right now we have two cold-callers on a dialer. I would say the majority of our deals are not just cold calls though. The majority of deals are referral-based.

Steve: So they’re brought to you?

Andrew: They’re brought to us.

Steve: So let’s talk about that. Because, I mean, I was planning on asking you this later on, but-

Andrew: We can just cut scene to Jamille’s show. Like, literally, just, boom, Jamille’s show, that’s what we do.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: No.

Steve: Well, so branding is a very big piece of your business. So let’s talk about that. I mean, what compelled you to start branding, and then how are you executing that vision? So let’s start with what compelled you to start branding so hard? Because you made a shift. I want to say like four months ago, like, bam, “We’re going to be the brand.” So let’s talk about that.

Andrew: Absolutely. Okay. So when I began in real estate, we did direct mail. We did postcards, we did yellow letters. I got really good. I started using yellow letters without the envelopes. I just tabbed them to save money. I mean, we use variable data. We’d send it to absentee owners. We’d alternate between postcards and letters. We were really good. My cost per lead was like, it was around, like, $40, which is expensive.

Steve: Oh, that’s amazing for sellers.

Andrew: Yeah, it wasn’t too bad. It actually started out at over $200 a lead, but we got it down. Then, it started going back up again. We were like, “Whoa, direct mail sucks. It’s not working.” Nothing’s changed, except competition has changed. I think the psychology of sellers have changed. They started realizing that there’s a lot of direct mail out there. There’s a commercial saying, “Throw away those yellow letters. Throw away … ” You know, people totally dissing what we do.

Andrew: So I had to make a shift. I said, “What’s going to last forever?” And that’s social media. It’s not going anywhere. It’s an addiction. Everyone’s addicted. You probably look at your Facebook app, I would say over 30 times a day. And if you look at it that many times a day-

Steve: That’s on the low side.

Andrew: I want to be on each of those looks. I want to be there. I want to be on 29 of those. If I don’t get the last one, that’s fine. You’re probably checking out your new car or whatever. That’s fine. But I want to be there. So we said, “Let’s create a plan. Let’s create a strategy where we can be the brand on social media. If we-”

Andrew: Create a plan, let’s create a strategy where we can be the brand on social media. If we can be the brand on social media, that’s just a small little niche. That doesn’t include showcasing, that doesn’t include a booth as Azrea, that doesn’t include all the other…there’s so many different ways to market.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: Billboards, we just wanted social media. That’s all we’re gonna choose. Let’s pick one simple thing, and from there, we made the decision to plan posts. We organized posts, we added a tremendous value. I took some of Gary B’s training, Gary Baner Tuck’s training, which is amazing. He has a lot of free stuff, so I just compiled it and read through it. It’s amazing.

Steve: Oh yeah.

Andrew: Then, suddenly deals poured in.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: How do we sell this deal? Okay, no problem. I’ll send you an agreement, they sign it. I get it sold two seconds later.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: It was a beautiful thing. We just kept building and building and building. So, that’s where it was. Branding, branding is gonna last with you forever. A direct mail strategy won’t.

Steve: Right. That’s true, very true. So, I’ve noticed you posting… I wouldn’t call them images, but little stories on these various groups. So, let’s talk about the strategy behind it and then after that, how do you guys execute it.

Andrew: Nobody cares about what you know. Nobody cares about what you have to say.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: Everybody cares about a story.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: That’s why Disney does so well.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: That’s why Disney’s crushing it right now, cause they’re very good at building stories.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: So, they take stories, they put images to it and suddenly, Pixar is blowing up. It’s a multi-billion dollar company.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: To put that into a social media post, it will make you just as lucrative. I don’t know about multi-billion, maybe someday, but you need to create a story. People wanna know… there’s a beginning, there’s an issue, there’s a solution, there’s a falling action and there’s this beautiful image. Maybe there’s no image, but the point is people wanna be entertained.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: Do not… and I tell people when you wanna build a brand, when you wanna build a following, be real. Be a human being. If you’re gonna be someone who’s Mr. Fun Fact of the Day, there’s people out there like that. Hey, do you guys know that there’s… I mean there’s this old broker guy that posts. Did you guys know that 40 homeowners out of 50 homeowner’s studied showed that they’d rather sell their house in 30 days? It’s like nobody cares.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: They want the raw you.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: They want vulnerability.

Steve: Well, the thing that you do a really good job of with those stories, is that you’re inside the wholesaler’s head, right? Those are problems we run into all the time.

Andrew: That’s right.

Steve: So, how do you go from, okay here’s something I wanna do. Who comes up with the story? Do you come up with the story?

Andrew: So, our marketing team goes through these different pages. Whether it’s hosting houses full time, Alex, I’ll send you an invoice later. Whether it’s hosting houses uncensored or whatever. We pick different topics.

Andrew: Okay, so direct mail, door knocking, driving for dollars. So these different topics, and I collate these topics and I write down all the problems in these topics. What are the problems people are having, cause problems are all we care about. How do we solve them? We don’t care about anything else.

Andrew: Cause I wanna make that 30K check. Maybe the check gets them to read the post. It’s a very good tactic, not mine, but a very good tactic.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: So…

Steve: Good for building an audience, not good for connecting.

Andrew: Not good for connecting, not a deep, intimate personal level.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: So, you do need to get in their head like you stated. So, we pick those topics and we pick problems or questions that people will have. So, that’s how I climb into their brain, it’s like I pull it apart and say, hey, I’ve been where you are.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: You’re probably wondering why your bank account only has a couple thousand in it, and you got five thousand in expenses you’ve gotta pay next week, and you need a deal and nothing’s converting.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: Okay. Now, suddenly everyone’s glued to the screen. What do I do?

Steve: Exactly.

Andrew: So from there, I provide a solution. It’s not the end-all solution, it’s probably just in a specific niche. Here’s what works for me, and it’s all based on what helps me in the moment.

Andrew: Some of it doesn’t work for everybody. If you’re in a different market, it might not work for you, but for me this is what helped.

Steve: Very cool. So, you’ve got the story. You’ve got what you wanna get out there, the message.

Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steve: Who executes the storyboard?

Andrew: So, we have a team that creates the copy.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: So, we have a… it’s copywriting. So, they create the copy and we edit it, an if it’s on my personal page, I’ll edit it. I’ll look at it and say, ah I don’t like how that’s said. Obviously in the Philippines, they’re very good and very literate, extremely amazing; really good speakers of English and writers of English surprisingly. But, sometimes it just doesn’t flow like what we would say in America, or in Arizona. So, I’ll adjust it. I’ll add the emoji’s. Actually, they add the emoji’s, I’ll replace them.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: If it’s on my wall, a lot of times I’ll make those posts and put them out there.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: If it’s on other walls or wholesaling Houses Full Time, we’ll get those created, so they build it. I look at it, they go through probably three or four different drafts.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: Then we put it out there.

Steve: And you feel like in putting out these stories, you’re getting more relationships and contacts?

Andrew: Yeah, I got about, there’s about 400 people I haven’t even talked to. They’ve sent me messages.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, like I’ve gotta go through those and it’s unfortunate. That’s honestly something I need to be better at. I need to go every night and answer all these people’s questions.

Steve: Like Gary B. says.

Andrew: You have to. He says that in Crush It.

Steve: Yeah, I know. I read it.

Andrew: You need to spend all your days just answering all these people. These people ask really good questions. A lot of them just say, hey, can you help me? Hey, can I bug you for 10 minutes?

Steve: Well, because we’re good friends, all you’ve gotta do is just give me your Facebook login and I will answer their questions.

Andrew: Awesome, okay perfect.

Steve: I will work for free for you.

Andrew: Awesome. That was a good solution. There you go, you brought a solution.

Steve: Alright. So, what… we already talked about lead sources. So, lead sources were froze.

Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steve: Okay. So, do you have a favorite service for skip-tracing?

Andrew: We use Tracers Info.

Steve: Tracers info.

Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative). There’s a lot out there. I would say the mac daddy would probably be DELF Point.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: Or TLO, a lot of people like TLO. They’re great, and I think wholesalers are getting super savvy when they get to an enterprise level. They show up and they say hey, Mr. DELF Point, I want to purchase a package. Here’s a hundred K. Can you give me three years? Whatever, I think that’s awesome prepaying, cause you’re gonna have it for a long time. It’s gonna be very necessary and relevant.

Andrew: We use Tracers. We negotiated a really good deal with them.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: It’s awesome, it’s really good info.

Steve: Yeah.

Steve:

Andrew: It’s super close to…

Steve: Well, we’re trying, we’re looking at Tracers, and they want a DNA test. We were like…

Andrew: They’re insane.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: They’re really insane, and for that reason, I think they’re more strict now then they were about eight months ago, a year ago.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: But to cultivate that relationship is so key.

Steve: Right. Okay, and do you have any interesting war stories?

Andrew: War stories?

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: For real estate?

Steve: For what you’re doing in the trenches right now, wholesaling, flipping…

Andrew: Well, I did sign a non-disparagement clause on a recent settlement.

Steve: So, besides that one?

Andrew: Everybody knows that one, and I can’t tell you about it even if you PM me, so sorry. Besides that one, yeah, I do got one.

Andrew: So, I had a really silly buyer, and I’ll just say silly buyer. I won’t say his name. He purchased a property from us, and there were tenants in the property. So, we had an ESCROW holdback, and the ESCROW holdback is a strategy where the seller doesn’t get all of the money until the tenants are out of the house which is great and I would say a hundred percent necessary.

Steve: Oh yeah.

Andrew: Especially in investing. Everybody’s showing up, I want hard money. I’m not giving you your 10K. So, there’s a period, it’s called a performance period that they need to be out by a certain amount of time.

Andrew: Now, it needs to be by, I would say by law, it needs to be long enough so that you can actually have ample time to evict. You can’t just have a period, okay 10 days you need to get your tenants out. ESCROW holdback, I’m keeping that money, legal won’t let it happen.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: So, we had this long period of time. I think it was 60 days. Which is exactly the amount of time you’re going to need for a formal eviction, but you gotta get your crap together. You gotta get going.

Andrew: So, the buyer didn’t do it and the seller is wondering when he’s gonna get his 10K. The buyer is like, oh well your tenants are still inside, I’m not giving that to you.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: Well it’s actually not the buyer’s issue, it’s held at ESCROW. So it’s inside a title company. The title company is like, Andrew, the seller is really upset. Came down to the office and is knocking on the door, wants the money. Talking to Issac too.

Andrew: We’re out of the deal, it closed.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: We double closed it. We’re out of this. So, I don’t know why title is contacting us, which is really weird.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: I guess we’re still in the transaction if our name is on it. I don’t know, but anyway, the seller lost the money.

Steve: Really?

Andrew: Yeah. Well, it’s at legal right now, but I think they’re just gonna split it. Usually what they do is they split it right down the middle.

Steve: That’s the cheapest, cause once you get attorneys involved, it gets really expensive.

Andrew: I think so.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah.

Steve: So, what would you consider to be some of your critical components to your success?

Andrew: Well, your favorite word, grit. That’s your favorite word.

Steve: Yeah, I know.

Andrew: I counted it. All the times we hung out, all the times you post it on line, you actually stated it two thousand, three hundred and 26 times. So, I would say grit, tenacity.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: And an undeniable desire to win, and also defining what is winning? So, your why. If you don’t have a strong why, you’re not going anywhere.

Andrew: A Lamborghini is not strong enough.

Steve: No it’s not.

Andrew: It could be. It could be up to Lamborghini, but once you get that Lambo, where are you going?

Steve: Exactly, so you opened that can, so what is your why?

Andrew: My why is to help and serve people, help and serve the world. Specifically impoverished or poverty-stricken areas of the Philippines. I love the Philippines. South America as well. I really wanna give back. I wanna build those areas. I think they’re extremely talented.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: I think the Philippines is more talented than we can realize.

Steve: I already know they are.

Andrew: Yeah, I had an Excel spreadsheet with 20 pivot tables made, in under five minutes. I don’t know any American that can do that. So, just saying, and they can speak a hundred percent English and they’re very clear. They’re very kind. I really wanna help develop many parts of that country.

Steve: Yeah. Very cool.

Andrew: So, that’s my why.

Steve: So, what is your biggest hurdle right now?

Andrew: Ooh. Right now, I would say speed and growth and scale.

Steve: Okay, so what does that mean?

Andrew: It’s a big bottleneck. Well, that means I have a lot of bottlenecks, and I want to grow in scale. Training, training large groups of people so that they can sound proficient on the phone. So they know exactly how to rebuttal any objection.

Andrew: Growing a larger general VA admin for our other companies like Buymoretime.com and rentforprofit.com. It’s a slow grow. I wish it wasn’t so slow. I’m very much a do it all right now at once. I think that’s what helps me in a way, but it’s also my detriment.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: Issac keeps me on the ground. Speed of growth is a big hurdle for me because I’m just so impatient.

Steve: So, I had the opportunity to go through coaching with Darren Hardy, and what he said was more businesses fail for growing too fast than too slow. So, I would caution you.

Andrew: Very good.

Steve: To just be happy with the growth, if you’re growing with positive monthly net.

Andrew: Perfect. It is positive.

Steve: Yeah, so as long as you’re making money every month, just don’t rush it, cause I know as entrepreneurs, we wanna get it done right now and it’s hard right? To be patient, but the long game is what normally wins.

Steve: Then the other thing about the group, trying to coach all those people and get them to the right speed, are you the one that’s doing the group calls? Are you doing the role-playing? Are you listening to the calls?

Andrew: No.

Steve: So, that’s a great challenge for all of us, and I found it helpful to listen to the calls.

Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steve: And then coach them on afterwards. It’s on me for not consistently doing it, I should be doing it every single week. I do it every other week, but that was the reason why I was so impressed with Carlos and Salsa, they’ve got one person whose job is to quality control. I don’t know if that’s an option for you.

Andrew: Oh yeah. When you said do you do it? That’s on me, I don’t do it. I have a VA do it.

Steve: You have a VA do it, but you’re still…

Andrew: Yeah, we’ll come in occasionally and listen to the calls and see how they’re doing. If our numbers for example, leads converted is lower.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: We’ll wonder, well what’s going on? What’s wrong with the calls? So, it’s either the list is the problem or the person on the phone’s the problem.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: Darren’s calling me. Why is Darren calling? So, it’s either any of those issues, but the other KPIs are gonna indicate why the calls… the KPIs will indicate what the issue is and where the snag is at. So, it’s our job to go in there and get it done…

Steve: So, where are you using the tracker KPIs?

Andrew: Podio.

Steve: Podio.

Andrew: Podio. So, we actually use two system. We use Google sheets.

Steve: It’s a great program.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s awesome. There’s a lot of different add-ons that we love that are always being built every day with automations in it and we also use Podio.

Steve: Cool, and I think I heard you say Investor Fuse.

Andrew: Yeah, we did use Investor Fuse, they’re really good. I actually work really closely with Dan Schwartz, amazing, amazing individual. Specifically Investor Fuse, not right now, but we’re excited to work with Dan and his team and Carlos very soon, but I love Investor Fuse. I love the company.

Andrew: There’s a couple of things that I wanted to automate myself, that was very niche, and extremely… we wanted to keep it locked down. We didn’t really wanna share what that was, but yeah, we worked very closely with them.

Steve: So, I was actually talking to someone this week, cause we us Podio, and we’re looking at Skipio. So, do you combine the two to create your automation?

Andrew: Correct, correct and we actually separate those. We do separate it, because the APIs for Skipio are not compatible, or they don’t really communicate well with Skipio.

Steve: Okay, alright. So, we’re probably gonna have to spend like a half-day working on that.

Andrew: Seriously.

Steve: Okay, so what is your super power?

Andrew: I did the personality test.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: It told me what my super power was, and that’s voices. Being a voice. I’m a campaigner.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: Movement, creating movement. Creating a movement.

Steve: Alright.

Andrew: So, kind of like what you’re doing right now. This is a movement. This is amazing. Real estate distributors is fantastic. It’s a multi-billion dollar company right here.

Andrew: He’s a disruptor, but I would say my biggest power would be push, would be motivation.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: It would be motivation, cause I’m not good at the numbers. I like them, but I’m not good at them. I’m not good at operations.

Steve: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew: I like it, but I’m not good at it. Just all the other mindless tasks that need to be done, I know they need to be done, so I put people in place.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: To get those done.

Steve: Yeah, and then I think that it’s interesting, cause you say voices right?

Andrew: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steve: But you’re not this big time extrovert, but you’re social media presence screams.

Andrew: Yeah.

Steve: Extrovert, so it’s fascinating that you’re voices.

Andrew: That’s actually forced, yeah it’s really forced. I could be happy with 20 books in my room, and just read the books.

Steve: Right.

Andrew: Just hang out, do a couple of Facebook Lives, but nothing. I don’t go in public, I’m totally fine with that.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: I’m actually really comfortable with that, but I have to push myself a little bit. I do like to be out in the open though, but it’s not always.

Steve: Well they say most entrepreneurs are introverts, so going through Success Magazine, what Darren Hardy said was out of all the people he interviewed, I think he said it was only 20% were actually extroverts. So, most successful entrepreneurs tend to be introverts.

Steve: Alright, so we hinted on it earlier, what are all your other businesses?

Andrew: So, we have Buy More Time, and excuse me, I have a lot here. We’ll just put out all 10 of them. No, I’m kidding there’s not 10. So, we have an acquisitions and dispositions company. The acquisitions company is called Trusted Cash Offer which is what you mentioned earlier. Our disposition company is Live Cash Deals. Those are the two real estate wholesale acquisition/disposition companies. We’ll put those to the side.

Steve: Okay.

Andrew: Along with those, I have buymoretime.com which we help individuals, entrepreneurs, it could be a dentist, it could be a lawyer. Mostly real estate investors, mostly with VA services. So, it’s an agency. It’s an agency founded by a VA, ran and owned by a VA. So, they know. It’s Pamela Sanchez.

Steve: I thought it was Pamela’s business.

Andrew: Pamela’s business.

Steve: Or, a co-owner.

Andrew: Correct, she’s a co-owner.

Steve: Very cool.

Andrew: She totally knows this, she gets it, she owns it and that’s the difference. It’s not owned by Americans, it’s actually owned by an actual Filipino, so buymoretime.com. Rentforprofit.com and that is a site where we lead you to a Facebook page that helps other people learn how to rent via rental [inaudible 00:34:00], so you don’t have to buy a house, you lease a property from Steve Tran,…

Andrew: So you don’t have to buy a house. You lease a property from Steve Trang, you re lease it on a short term rental, which would include Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway, FlipKey, Trip Advisor.

Steve: It’s a lot of places.

Andrew: Yeah.

Steve: Okay, so you coach people, or you teach them how to lease a property long term and then rent it for more short term, over and over again?

Andrew: Correct.

Steve: And that’s like a coaching platform? That’s a forum? A resource?

Andrew: Yeah, so we have 33 coaching set up and that’s on an individuals basis. It depends on where you are. We schedule a call with you and we you. If you’re in Alaska it’s gonna be really difficult to communicate, only by phone and by video, but we could do it. We had some clients in other states that we help. So yeah, you create a lease with a landlord and you sublease. It’s an official sublease that you set up for short term rental. You furnish it and everything.

Steve: And then does this tie into your lease option business?

Andrew: Absolutely, so a lease option business or any other coaching would be Hands Free Leads, which is another company. We have a lot of things going on. Each of these has VAs that run it.

Steve: Okay.

Andrew: We have a VA that runs for Lead Gen, and we have a VA that is set up just for general admin. Example, onboarding, setting up the contract to sign for any amount of time for the business and then obviously a VA to follow up with the individual to see if they’ve completed their tasks.

Steve: Right. Okay, so we got, Buy More Time, Hands Free Leads, … What was the –

Andrew: Rent For Profit.

Steve: Rent For Profit.

Andrew: Life Cash Deals.

Steve: Life Cash Deals.

Andrew: Cash To Cash Offer.

Steve: What happen for the Driving For Dollars one?

Andrew: Driving For Dollars was an experiment. It was an experimental campaign, but it feeds into Hands Free Leads. So we do help people with Driving For Dollars, and what we do is literally it’s a liaison to buy more time. We hook you up with a VA so all you have to do is talk into your phone using Voxer and a VA will take those addresses, skip trace them for you, send them back to you in the format you want it. So pretty sweat set up.

Steve: It is a sweat set up.

Andrew: It’s not officially Drive For Dollars, we do have drivefordollarsnow.com, which if you go through there, we will set you up, but it’s gonna be a Buy More Time, or Hands For Leads product. I try to up sale you. So I want you to be on Buy More Time, but if you just want Hands Free Leads, you get pretty cheap coaching consultations.

Steve: Okay, nice. Then what lesson would you want to teach today’s young real estate entrepreneurs?

Andrew: Quit your job and build a parachute on the way down. Jump off the bridge and go. I’ve helped a couple people quit their job, and I won’t name names, but they’ve made a name for themselves. Like they’ve done really well and that, I’m honored, I’m honored to be a part of that and help them. I don’t think anybody should be shackled to anything. I think we need, and you said for entrepreneurs, so you didn’t say for the layman person right now. If you wanna be a cashier, please be a cashier, if that makes you jive. If you want to be a bagger, please be a bagger.

Steve: If you’re happy doing it.

Andrew: If you’re happy doing it. If you’re an entrepreneur it’s time to cut the strings and get very uncomfortable. Be extremely uncomfortable. Negative in the bank account is totally fine. Be very, very, very uncomfortable. So that’s my biggest advice.

Steve: That’s great. So I had someone big leave my office officially yesterday and it was a great reminder of the people that care about you, ’cause I had multiple people reach out to me. He was like, “Hey you know, Steve I saw this and are you doing okay?” I told everyone, I was like, “I’m doing fine, thank you for calling.” I’m not upset that he made that decision, ’cause he did what he thought was best for him and his family. What I always tell people is, you gotta do what’s best for you and your family. My job is to do, make that work wit me, but hey if it’s not, whatever. No big deal, but I can’t get made for a guy chasing his dreams, ’cause just like you, I tell people to quit their jobs to chase their dreams.

Andrew: I know. That’s hard.

Steve: So I can’t get mad if someones like, “Oh, I’m gonna go try to chase my dream over here.”

Andrew: You know what’s interesting? I’ll be very candid and I’ve been very open with both of these individuals, out two acquisition guys, Darren Bodle and Darien Owens. I’ve told them and I’m telling you if you’re watching this, and you guys know this, I’ve already told you, you’re not gonna be with us forever. I tell them, you’re not gonna be with us for, we don’t want you to be. If you want to be, great. If you don’t want to be, awesome, because that’s what we want, we want you to rise to another level.

Steve: Exactly.

Andrew: Because I can still work with you on a higher level. If you leave and you become a CEO of whatever company, well great, I still want to work with you. We’ll find a way to work together.

Steve: Exactly.

Andrew: Because I’m gonna have something you need and you’re gonna have something I want. So that’s the type of mindset we have. We don’t want to hold anybody down.

Steve: No, don’t want to hold anybody back. We don’t wish any ill will for anybody.

Andrew: That’s it.

Steve: Okay and then so what’s the greatest lesson you have learned?

Andrew: Patience, patience. For me I want it all now.

Steve: Yeah, you should talk to the other guy earlier who was saying he wants his business flying right now.

Andrew: Want it all now. I know, he just spoke, like literally just right here. I showed up in person. I want it all right now. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is patience. I’ve learned that my wife is my rock. She keeps me even. She keeps me on the straight and narrow, and she’s my big reminder of patience and if I can be patient, everything will work out. Now it’s funny, Gary [inaudible 00:39:18] talks about patience all the time and I hated that word for a long time, because everyone’s like, or I hated that word because it tells me just wait. Many people think patience is waiting. It’s not waiting. It’s earnestly getting after what you need done, while expecting the best result. If you don’t get it keep going, but expect the best result.

Steve: Interesting. I would add to that with my wife. She’s, I tell her all the time, she doesn’t like this world, but my job is to go out an cause trouble and her job is to keep me out of it as much as she can.

Andrew: There you go.

Steve: So just like your wife is your rock, my wife is mine too.

Andrew: Absolutely. Yeah, without a doubt.

Steve: So what are you learning right now?

Andrew: A couple things. I’m reading a book called Never Eat Alone, love that book, and another book called Leading the Leading Mind, which is neuroscience and business that got married. It’s really cool. It’s about sales, business, automation with neuroscience. The Leading Mind, that’s what I’m learning right now. How to manage large teams without being a manager. Putting other people in place for you. Setting expectations and setting sub expectations, because our large expectations are gonna be long term, our sub expectations will be short term. What happens when you don’t reach that sub expectation, or that sub goal? What do you do? I use to freak out and blow up and what are we gonna do about this, but you just create another one, very similar to it and push forward. In fact, Entrepreneur Rollercoaster by Darren Hardy talks about that.

Steve: So can you give me an example of a goal and a sub goal, and one recently that you didn’t reach and then you modified it?

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. So we wanna get about ten appointments a week per acquisition guy and it’s gonna be about two a day. So two to three appointments a day. We shoot for three appointments a day. If we don’t make those appointments then we got to revaluate. We have a meeting, we talk about it, and we say okay, what’s a reasonable amount of appointments we can have in a week? That works really well because the sub goal is always changing. It’s a variable, but the long goal never changes. Notice that.

Steve: So how do you, I mean if you’re modifying, I mean are we going from three to one and a half?

Andrew: Yeah so-

Steve: So we modify the goal from three to one and a half, how do we still hit the long goal?

Andrew: Well so once you’ve created and MVP, minimum viable product, you can say, hey I finally made the sub goal. You have to say, great, now what’s the next step to make it to the larger goal?

Steve: Okay.

Andrew: So the larger goal shouldn’t be a variable, so if you had a variable “X” that could be your sub goal. Your large goal should be firm. It shouldn’t change at all. So if you say I want to make a million dollars a month. That should never change. Now a lot of people, and the problem with entrepreneurs is they change that. They lower that goal. They lower that standard. I think Grant Cardone talks about this in the tax role. They lower that standard and that’s wrong. Don’t ever lower it. That should be up or it should be even higher, but you should create sub goals. The reason why this one never changes is ’cause that’s your vision board. That’s your chins always up looking straight up at that goal. Can’t lower the big one.

Steve: Okay. Cool. And then how has failure shaped your life?

Andrew: I’ve had some really low months, really low years. I think in those times, I reflect … When I fail I close my door, which is a huge issue. I’m getting very vulnerable. I’m gonna tell you one of my biggest weaknesses right now. When I fail, I turn off social media. So whenever you see me turn off social media and I don’t post …

Steve: And you’re quite for a while.

Andrew: … and I’m quite for a while, it’s because I’m really upset. I’m really upset and something didn’t go my way. So when something and when I fail in anything, I shut everything off, I close my doors, and I lock myself up. Lot of times I don’t talk to my wife a lot. I talk throughout the day, I need to be better at that, but she knows when somethings wrong and she’s a sweetheart for just being my rock and being there, serving me. I need to fix that. I need to change that. I haven’t figured out how. Actually in this last lull that I’ve had, I said, you know, screw it, failure or victory, I’m gonna go as hard as I can. If I fail at the end, awesome. If I win awesome. I don’t care the outcome. I’m just gonna go as hard as I can.

Steve: So what I need to do it, introduce you to Lizzie, she was the loan officer that we interviewed two Fridays ago and she came into our office and gave a great class on what to do in cases of burn out and when you’re producing at a high level and then you either burn out from producing at that high level, or burn out because you’re no longer hitting the same number as before and get super frustrated and she deals with that same problem. So she’s studied it. She went deep dive on it. So you should connect with her ’cause she kind of like went through this whole level. Like here are the levels of burn out.

Andrew: Yeah, you tagged her. I’m gonna reach out to her.

Steve: So you should reach out to her. That’d be a good connection. Is there any book that you’ve read that everybody needs to read?

Andrew: If you’ve seen the play, read the book. The book’s ten times better. There’s like this campaign that the Mormon church ran with right after the play release, ’cause it’s satire of our religion. We have this campaign that says, now that you saw the paly, read the book, and then morman.org. It was pretty cool. Talk about funnels. We know funnels. The Book of Mormon shaped my life. It is funny, it talks about this story of a guy named Nephi who tried to go into Jerusalem three times, and the first two times he failed. The third time he made it, and this is in chapter one. This is in the first book of Nephi. It took three times to get what he needed accomplished done and he was trying to get the plates from Laban who’s a bad guy in Jerusalem and he gets them and he brings them back to his father Lehi in the wilderness. So that book’s taught me, never give up. There’s so many instance. I think it’s so funny. I think the Book of Mormon was written for entrepreneurs. Sorry I’m really dragging this on.

Steve: Oh no, that’s totally fine.

Andrew: It was written for entrepreneurs. And yes I’m pushing my religion on you. So I’ll baptize you later. It’s like stories of people that try, and try, and try and then they ask for help from God, or if you’re a believer in the universe, from the universe, whatever it is and it finally get it because it’s a direct reflection on how you can serve other people. So if your purpose is to serve and love other people, you’re gonna get what you want. That’s what that book taught me.

Steve: Very cool.

Andrew: That one a more worldly book, I guess I would say, is Never Eat Alone is really good. I’m reading a chapter right now called The King of Content. That’s what it’s called. I want to be the king of content. I want to be “the” king.

Steve: Well I think you’re doing it.

Andrew: I’m doing okay. It’s a small niche we’re in, but I want to create a blog. I don’t have that. I need to build that. Our social media team and our content team need to be built out a little bit better. I’m gonna fix it up. Yeah, Never Eat Alone. Definitely read it.

Steve: Okay, and if you need any help, I would say go to realestatedirupters.com. Like that’s the model.

Andrew: Yes. That’s it.

Steve: Of what a blog should look like.

Andrew: Perfect. I’m going there.

Steve: All right.

Andrew: Great company.

Steve: I’m gonna send you a link actually. It’s gonna have all the content. You kind of see how it looks.

Andrew: Awesome.

Steve: Okay, and then what have you done that everybody should do?

Andrew: Well, what have I done that I think everybody should do? I think everybody should do CrossFit.

Steve: Okay.

Andrew: You know you don’t want to hear that.

Steve: Well I’ve done it. I’ve done it and I stopped it.

Andrew: Everybody should do, I think they should do CrossFit.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: CrossFit is this hell for about an hour and it’s an hour of hell and your mind is on fire. What do you think about when your heart rates at 180 and you’re stressed out and you’re sweating and minutes feel like hours, and hours feel like months.

Steve: Oh, yeah. When you’re counting down on the row machine, like two more minutes, thirty more seconds.

Andrew: It doesn’t end.

Steve: Yeah.

Andrew: And your hearts gonna explode and fall out of your chest and you’re gonna throw up on the floor. That has taught me so many lessons in life. I would say football too. I played football in high school and just high school football. I know it’s so long ago. It was almost like CrossFit. It’s like we’re gonna put you through hell, through this amount of time. Let’s see if you last. I’m learning my limit is, it gets greater and greater and greater. Started off doing only three pull ups. I’m doing six and I’m doing ten. So when you can see it in your physical body, you can probably realize it in your wallet. You can realize it in your spirituality and your family.

Steve: That’s really powerful. So I think that’s probably a really good place to end this.

Andrew: Cool.

Steve: So if someone wants to get ahold of you, what’s that best way to do that?

Andrew: I would say PM me on Facebook, but I’ve got like a billion people I need to respond to. I would say PM me. You could Tweet me at andrewinvestor. You can call me, I’m gonna do it 480-980-9022. If I don’t answer you immediately, send me a text. That was suicide.

Steve: Or Voxer.

Andrew: Or Voxer. Hit me up on Voxer. Andrew Labaron. I have two profiles there. So depending on which one you hit up//

Steve: Okay, and if you guys liked the show, please again, share this episode right now and please join me next Wednesday at 2:00. We got our good friend Brandon Simmons who’s personally moved 350 houses for over four million dollars in fees and don’t forget to visit our website, realestatedisrupters.com. YOu’ll find out about all you’ll get the video replay of this, the audio replay of this, and then information about our upcoming events. So that’s it. Thank you guys and thank you that was awesome.